The rapidly growing market for personal computers is currently undergoing a revolution driven in part by multimedia computing demands. Conventional personal computers, however, have only rudimentary multimedia capabilities. Multimedia functions such as video-conferencing and FAX/modem are usually implemented in separate add-in cards which are then coupled to the personal computer's external ports. Simply adding multimedia functions to a conventional personal computer in such a piecemeal fashion is largely ineffective and results in an embryonic implementation of such functions. Further, conventional processors employed in personal computers are not designed to incorporate a large variety of multimedia functions and, accordingly, have severe limitations upon the quality and speed with which the various multimedia functions may be implemented.
Thus, there is a need for a single-chip multimedia engine that incorporates the seven multimedia functions, e.g., video, 2D graphics, 3D graphics, audio, FAX/modem, telephony, and video-conferencing and, as such, effectively addresses the needs of the home personal computer market as well as the retail multimedia upgrade market.